freight cars are being perpetually shunted, but beyond the
railroad tracks are nothing but the brown plains, with their
lonely sights--now a solitary horseman at a traveling amble, then
a party of Indians in paint and feathers, but civilized up to the
point of carrying firearms, mounted on sorry ponies, the
bundled-up squaws riding astride on the baggage ponies; then a
drove of ridgy-spined, long-horned cattle, which have been
several months eating their way from Texas, with their escort of
four or five much-spurred horsemen, in peaked hats, blue-hooded
coats, and high boots, heavily armed with revolvers and repeating
rifles, and riding small wiry horses. A solitary wagon, with a
white tilt, drawn by eight oxen, is probably bearing an emigrant
and his fortunes to Colorado. On one of the dreary spaces of the
settlement six white-tilted wagons, each with twelve oxen, are
standing on their way to a distant part. Everything suggests a
beyond.

[7] The discovery of gold in the Black Hills has lately given it
a great impetus, and as it is the chief point of departure for
the diggings it is increasing in population and importance.
(July, 1879)


September 9.

I have found at the post office here a circular letter of
recommendation from ex-Governor Hunt, procured by Miss Kingsley's
kindness, and another equally valuable one of "authentication"
and recommendation from Mr. Bowles, of the Springfield
Republican, whose name is a household word in all the West.